Left and right agree: Ed Balls shouldn't fall on his sword

Anthony Seldon's New Statesman column provokes debate.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls speaks on the second day of the annual Labour Party Conference in Manchester on October 1, 2012. Photograph: Getty Images.

Anthony Seldon’s column in today’s New Statesman, calling for Ed Balls to resign, has provided plenty for the chattering classes to chew on.

Responding to Seldon’s piece, the Guardian'sJonathan Freedland defends Balls’s record and highlights his prescience in predicting a double-dip recession.

Balls is one of the very few people in politics able to utter those golden words: I told you so... Asking a politician to resign when they get things wrong is one thing. Demanding they quit when they get things right is a kind of madness.

Freedland also doubts whether the shadow chancellor stepping down would benefit Labour in the way the co-author of Brown at 10 envisages.

David Cameron turns a shade of puce every time he finds himself facing Balls. Why is it the Tories hate him so? In politics, such loathing is a compliment. It suggests Balls is one of the few Labour figures they fear. The same goes for the right-leaning commentariat's regular demand that Balls go, a chorus Seldon has now joined.

And he warns that, rather than ending factionalism in the Labour Party, Balls's departure would reignite it: "there will be a sizable group that believes it lacks a voice. Resentments will grow. Call it a team of rivals, pissing out of the tent or keeping your enemies closer – the idea is the same. It's best for Ed M to have Ed B on board."

LabourList editor Mark Ferguson is similarly unconvinced, describing Seldon’s article as "a piece that is character assassination just about dressed up in the faux-niceties of "advice". Ferguson also defends Balls’s economic credentials, praising his August 2010 Bloomberg lecture as "written by someone who understands the global economy – which should be the first thing Labour is looking for in terms of potential Chancellors." Although Balls "needs to articulate how he’d make Ed Miliband’s vision of a radically different type of economy a reality", Ferguson says he has been vindicated "on the fundamental call of the day." And he implores his party to "stop pretending that there are an array of alternative to Balls as Shadow Chancellor".

This view was echoed by the tweet that it "would be madness to dump either of the Eds. Please don't. Please, please, please." But given that the author was ConservativeHome editor Tim Montgomerie, perhaps that isn’t the support Balls needs.

Update: Elsewhere, Iain Dale says he was "incredulous" when he read Seldon's piece and describes Balls as a politician "respected and feared by the Conservatives".

Dale writes: "They [the Conservatives] try to pretend that he is their biggest asset. Some may really believe that, but for most it is pure bravado. He knows how to needle Tories, he knows which buttons to press to rile them and his attacks invariably hit home."